Sport in Ottawa
[2] Ottawa also has a minor hockey program, and plays host to the Bell Capital Cup each year.
The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team that was founded in 1876 and would prove to be one of the oldest tenured sports franchises in North America.
[3] The team won nine Grey Cup championships over its long history but due to poor team play, poor attendance records and even worse management, the Rough Riders folded after the 1996 season, ending 120 years of professional football in Ottawa.
The team, called the Ottawa Renegades, began play in 2002, but folded in 2006 after just four seasons, due again to poor management.
[4] Less than two years later, in March 2008, a new franchise was awarded to the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, led by Jeff Hunt, to begin play in 2010.
The franchise was conditional upon reconstruction of Frank Clair Stadium, leading to a four-year delay for the team.
There have since been efforts to revive the program, with the football team being approved for Ontario University Athletics membership beginning in 2013.
However, the team lasted just one season, as it folded, citing high rent for the stadium, despite respectable attendance.
[9] The Ottawa Blackjacks of the Canadian Elite Basketball League were established in 2019 and began play in 2020.
The first classic set a record for the highest attended university game in Canadian history.
Ottawa has sent four teams to the Brier to represent Ontario: Eldon Coombe (1972), Earle Morris (1985), Rich Moffatt (1999) and Bryan Cochrane (2003).
Ottawa has also sent 15 teams to the Tournament of Hearts: Helen Hanright (1964), Dawn Ventura (1974 and 1976), Anne Merklinger (1993, 1994, 1998 and 2000) Jenn Hanna (2005 and 2016), Rachel Homan (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019).
Gaelic football has been present in the capital since the formation of the men's team, the Ottawa Gaels, in 1974 by Pat Kelly and Larry Bradley.
The ladies team was formed in 1984 by Breda Kelly and has been dominant in the Toronto GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) for the last decade.
[citation needed] Connaught Park Racetrack, located in Aylmer, Quebec operated from 1913 until its closure in 2008.
In the early 1960s, Rideau Carleton Raceway was opened south of Ottawa, and it continues to operate a season of harness racing annually, along with off-track betting and gambling.
[12] Since 2012, Ottawa has had an active amateur Hurling team made up of both local and Irish players.
[14] One of its founders and first patron was Sir John A. Macdonald; other members of the first executive committee included Robert Lyon (politician), mayor of Ottawa, and; Allan Gilmour, businessman in the shipping and timber industries.
The original club house was a wooden building, initially built on pontoons, and moored to the shore of the Ottawa river at the foot of parliament hill, between the Rideau canal and the Chaudière falls.
Whilst the view from the club house over the Chaudière falls was picturesque, the rowing conditions were difficult: vast field of sawdust and other refuse from an immense lumber mill situated about the falls, and logs escaping from the booms.
[17] The two world wars were difficult years for the club, with fourteen members of the club losing their lives while serving during World War I[18] and with the shell house being neglected and showing signs of deterioration.
He infuriated his reporters by paying them small salaries while openly spending into equipment and upkeep for the rowing club.
After seizing Club due to financial constraints, the City of Ottawa agreed to restore in 1967 the part of the old shell house that exists today but decided to demolish the other half of the building due to its poor condition (that portion of the building stored boats and included a ballroom).
